


I love you and goodbye.

by bemusedbicycle



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 02:13:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4122232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bemusedbicycle/pseuds/bemusedbicycle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Killian Jones has trouble saying I love you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I love you and goodbye.

He is six when he loses his mother, wracking coughs shaking her chest as she curls tighter in bed, his small hands pressed to her shoulders as he tries to get her to drink some water from the well. He isn’t strong enough to pull it all the way up on his own quite yet, and he wishes Liam were here to help. Maybe if she had a full, fresh bowl, she would feel better.

She pushes his hand away gently, closing her fingers around his palm and smiling through a wince. She doesn’t want water – nor the bread he stole from the stand in the market – and when she coughs again he feels hot tears of frustration pushing behind his eyes.

“You’re a good boy, Killian,” she whispers and he presses his face into her neck – climbs up on the bed and curls himself against her. She is too warm – even at six he knows she is too warm – but he doesn’t care. “I love you.” She whispers.

He clenches his fingers tight in the faded fabric of her nightdress. “I love you, Mama.”

When he wakes, she does not.

-/-

He’s always loved the sea, but his father teaches him how to harness that love. How to properly tie knots and hoist a sail. How to map by the stars and tell if a storm is rolling by the set of the wind.

He also teaches him how to cheat at cards, robbing men blind at the local taverns, falling intro drink soon after. Killian learns how to properly wake up an inebriated man, but he supposes that was not an intended lesson.

Still, he loves his days on the water; the nights spent inquiring after the movement of Naval forces. They’re looking for Liam, where he might be stationed, and Killian feels a thrill of excitement every time he sees one of the grand ships of the Royal Navy.

“Will we find him soon, Da?”

His father nods, eyes on the horizon and a weary expression on his face. He rolls the bottle in his hand back and forth, taking a heavy gulp and keeping his gaze steady on the water.

“But another adventure first?”

His father grins at that, finally tilting his eyes to the little boy swinging his legs on the dock next to him. “Aye, lad. Another adventure.” He pulls a stray bit of sail over Killian’s shoulders and ruffles his hair. Their ship is currently anchored elsewhere to avoid the men who had followed them from the village over, furious over the trick dice and coin stolen. Killian drops back against the worn wood and blinks his heavy eyes at the stars just starting to twinkle their way through the twilight. His father pulls the sail tighter.

“I love you, Killian.” His voice breaks on his name, but he thinks nothing of it, rolling onto his side and bringing his knees close to his chest.

When he wakes, he is gone.

-/-

Liam is still on the deck of the ship, his hands clasped behind his beck as he watches Killian carefully scrub at the weathered wood. He doesn’t have to do this, but he feels an itching in his bones when he goes below deck with the other men – like he doesn’t quite belong, like he hasn’t quite earned his way here yet. He’s a lieutenant now – far from the dirty boy Liam found rummaging in trash piles near the shore – but still. He doesn’t feel like he should be.

“Brother – “

“I should sleep, I know.” He scrubs a bit harder at a stubborn blood stain, wondering if this particular bit is from the pirates they beat off last week. Ed had taken a nasty swipe to the shoulder, making the mistake of turning his back before Killian could get to his side and kick the mongrel back over the edge of the ship with a boot to the chest.

“Not what I was going to say, but fair point.” Liam sighs and falls to his knees across from him, slowly but surely rolling his sleeves up and over his arms.

“What are you doing?”

“Are you questioning your captain?” He’s smiling, arms soaked in suds as he plunges a grimy rag into the bucket.

“No.” Killian feels an answering smile pull at the corners of his lips. “I’m inquiring as to why my brother is being a fool.”

Liam chuckles. “Fair point.” His eyebrows raise. “Again.”

They work in silence, the two of them, nothing but the gentle lap of water and the scrub of bristles against the wood between them.

“I’m proud of you, you know,” Killian looks up in surprise, focusing on the top of his brother’s head. “After everything, how far you’ve come.” He looks up, dropping his rag back into the pail and setting his hands on his legs, leaving two damp imprints of his hands against his navy-issued whites. “You’re a good sailor and a good man. And I know I don’t say it often,” He heaves out a heavy sigh, eyes soft, and Killian feels color rising on his cheeks to the tips of his ears. “But I love you.”

Killian blinks, thumb flicking at an errant soap sud sliding along his palm.

“Are you going to kiss me now?”

He dodges the rag lobbed at his head with a hearty laugh, Liam’s grin wide.

A week later and they’re on their way – with a sail sent from the gods that lifts the ship into the heavens to another land where there is a boy king and a terrible plant that almost rips away the only good thing he has left. Liam doesn’t say the words again, and neither does Killian, but he comes awfully close when they are standing together in the Captain’s quarters, Killian’s hand shaking as he tries to tell his brother what he means to him – how he’s his bloody hero and –

“I will follow you till the ends of the earth, brother.”

The ship lands back into the sea with a splash and a rock, but Liam falters.

He does not get up again.

-/-

He cannot help but love Milah. Her fierceness, the way she wields a blade. The rough tumble of her laugh and the way her fingertips trail up the inside of his arm. The way her dark hair brushes her cheekbones when a breeze blows in from the East. The way she smiles at him and sighs his name.

He’s been alone for a very long time.

Still, he keeps away from using the words that burn on his tongue for her. She shies away from them herself, content in their life of freedom and adventure – her body warm against his at night and her eyes bright in the morning. She doesn’t say the words until she is without her heart on the deck of his ship – the same place she had taught him to dance, with the moon and the stars as their guide, her happy laughter ringing along the mast – desperation in her dull gaze and her fingers pressed tight against his cheek.

“I love you.” She whispers, and then she is gone.

He finally sees the pattern.

-/-

Emma Swan is brilliant and beautiful and a bloody insufferable woman.

So of course he falls in love with her the moment she ties him to a tree and holds a knife to his throat, threatening him with certain death at the hands of the ogres. Her eyes flash jade while her hand holds true and he traces the way the sun shines through her golden hair, pulling against his bonds and wondering where in the hell they put his hook.

The beanstalk is another matter entirely, and he chuckles to himself as he rattles the chain around his wrist.

-/-

He loves her, and he is a fool for it.

-/-

He makes a promise on her name to the witch disguised as the mermaid. The second the magic hits his lips, it is not the curse he is afraid of.

No, he is more afraid of the death sentence he has just placed on Emma Swan, with the declaration of his love.

-/-

She is angry with him, when she finds out. But you have to be alive to be angry, so he counts his small victories.

-/-

When  _they_  finally begin a  _them_ , he tries to show her instead of saying it. He brings her coffee in the mornings, waiting up against her little yellow contraption, the metal cold through the thin material of his pants. He brings her the melted cheese sandwiches and the onion rings she prefers and twirls her hair around his fingers as he sips at his coffee. He brushes his lips against the pretty blush in her cheek and memorizes the way his name sounds sighed out beneath him in the stillness of her bedroom, his palm pressed high against her thigh, her bare breasts brushing against his chest.

He tries to show her, instead of saying the words.

He’s afraid of the words.

-/-

“Don’t you know, Emma?”

He is a fool for thinking that showing her could possibly be enough – that after the lifetime of pain and rejection and sorrow she has faced, his meager actions could possibly be enough to show her what she means to him.

He hates himself in this moment. That he has given her room to doubt.

“It’s you.”

-/-

He thinks she might say it - as she sits upon his lap, knees pressed tight against his hips. And he is a bloody stupid man because in this moment he feels like it might be possible, for him to be loved without dire consequence. For him to have this. For him to have her.

But she does not say the words and with the disappointment he tells himself he doesn’t feel, there is also relief.

-/-

He knows what she’s going to do the second before she does it, her blonde hair whipping at her shoulders, her eyes wide and resolute. He wants to grab her wrist and pull her back – march the pair of them back to his ship and lock her in his hold, darkness be damned - the town and everyone in it be damned.

But she has other ideas – his brave, beautiful lass.

Still, he tries to stop her. He loops his fingers tight around her wrist and begs her not to. She smiles – a sad little curve of her lips, and presses her forehead to his – laces their fingers together and tucks them against her heart.

“I love you.” She whispers, green eyes wide, a single tear sliding along the curve of her cheek.

She pushes him away, plunges the dagger into darkness, and she is gone.

-/-

There’s a fury in his bones as he sets about systematically drinking himself into a stupor and destroying the interior of his ship. There is no satisfaction from the red hot anger that laces through him as he slams a chair into the wall, uses one of the broken legs to shatter one of his lanterns.

He didn’t say it back.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

She was supposed to be  _different_.

-/-

Taking the darkness from her heart is no easy task, and he watches her arch her back and grit her teeth against the pain of it. Her fingers clench tight around his own as Merlin works above their huddled forms, a pained groan wheezing out as the battle between light and dark wages within her.

“Killian,” she slips her free hand along his arm to his shoulder, palm pressed flat against his neck. Her skin is far too hot and he’s been here before – cradling the woman he loves and asking her not to die. “I lo – “

“No,” he clenches his jaw and shakes his head. “Don’t say it.”

“But, I – “

“No.” He thumbs at her jaw, presses her hair behind her ear – rocks her back and forth in his lap and makes a million deals with a million different deities to keep her. For once,  _bloody hell_ , let him keep her. “Don’t you dare say it.”

He ducks his head and presses his lips to hers, light and dark exploding from her with a furious shriek. He just barely feels the softness of her lips, hears the whisper of his name, and then nothing at all.

When he wakes, there is silence, and she is in his arms.

-/-

He stays just long enough to assure himself of her safety, to make sure that she is guarded by the comfort of her family before he leaves. There’s still a storm brewing in his chest at the events of the day – of the look in her eyes when she has begun to say the words that have cursed his life.

He is not a man meant to be loved.

He’s three-fourths of the way through one of his oldest bottles of rum when he hears her feet on the deck – her steps sure and measured. He watches as she drops into his cabin, her eyebrows drawn tight, hands twisting together in anxiety. She has circles under her eyes and he wonders how long it’s been since she’s slept.

“You didn’t want me to say it.” Her voice is quiet, a thin tremor lacing her words. He takes another gulp from his bottle, averting his gaze to the tips of her boots. “Why?”

He lets the words roll around in his mouth, hazy and thick as he contemplates. They feel like cotton, stuck in his throat and making him breathe deeper. He meets her eyes with resignation.

“Because I didn’t fancy saying goodbye.”

-/-

When he wakes draped over the narrow cot in the corner of the room, she is pressed against him neck to shin, her fingers idly fiddling with his necklace. She rests her chin on his chest and carefully meets his eyes, the sun filtering in from the window reminding him of that first day – when he fell helplessly in love with the woman threatening his life.

She smiles, just a bit, a lazy curl of her lips as her fingers sink into his hair.

“I love you.” She sighs, and for once – for once – it is not a goodbye. “Killian, I love you.”

He inhales deep through his nose and grips a loose curl tight in his fist to keep his hand from shaking. It doesn’t work.

“I love you, too.”

For once, it’s a start and not an end.


End file.
